


Moonlight

by RoseChintz



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Adoribull - Freeform, Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:19:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseChintz/pseuds/RoseChintz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How do you love someone a season apart? When you are their demise, made for each other as you are death to each other. You don’t, really. You meet each other in the in-betweens, the twilights and dawns of the rolling months. You pretend it’s enough and you ache. </p>
<p>Dorian is the King of Summer Nights and Bull is the King of Winter Days. They meet sometimes and love each other always and it's almost enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> This is an apology for taking so long to update Hothouse Orchid - I'm working on it, really! Just stuck on a few Important Plot Things. 
> 
> This can be taken as a weird nonsensical dead-end AU as much as it can be taken for an analogy of aspects of their relationship; early on before they learn to communicate, or in Trespasser where they're in a long distance relationship out of necessity, or even smack dab in the middle of Qun-loyal Bull when they realize that they can't really be in love, can they? 
> 
> Either way it's me still not being able to cope with Trespasser or Bad End Bull. It's weird and artsy and absolutely not what I should be working on! Sorry!

 

 

The Summer King had brown skin. Brown like healthy bark, brown like fertile soil, brown like the smooth river stones where he took up his throne in the height of the evening. He knew all of this, too; he had heard it described as warm and rich and blending with the things he grew, the things he loved.

Bull, though. Dorian had no idea how to describe his skin in a way he felt that it deserved. It was riddled with the scars of a thousand victories, monolithic and expansive, and was the most beautiful thing Dorian had ever seen. For what could be more beautiful to Summer than the persistence of life? Winter had named himself The Iron Bull; a beast, a _thing,_ to appeal to the savage nature people wanted him to have, and to belie the depth of his soul.

In concept he was a brutal killer, the antithesis of life. And he could be when he wanted to. But that was only the surface.

In reality he was the sun that coaxed your coat off once the wind stopped howling; radiant and pale.

Pale like a fox with a patch of fur missing where it was bitten by a stronger rival. Pale like a fat, round, beetle grub, turned up by a clever animal. Bones left out to bleach. Roots snatching deep into the dark. All the likenesses Dorian could think of were rough-hewn and savage, dirty secrets of the earth, as was his nature; for all he might have been warm Dorian thrived in the nocturnal, and he felt Bull deserved something brilliant and bright.

Snow.

A vast white blanket without imperfections, until four dirty paws marked it. Creatures of the night. Creatures of the dark.

Ruined it, some would say.

Signed it, Dorian would say.

He longed to sign Bull’s skin.

And he could, by all rights. Grip him tightly until he melted. Tiny pinpricks of life springing up where Dorian’s fingertips were. Summer could melt him, and put all of himself into what Bull was. What harm could one more scar possibly do? Green shoots sprouting from a horn-crown of dead branches, chasing the hoarfrost off his brow. The winter wasn’t dead, though, not really. That was a horrible misconception. A front, a trick of the light.

He was only still.

He was patient and merciful as he was strong and unstoppable, and he rarely gave. He survived, and then he sustained. Nurtured. Defended. Those who endured had proven their worth and so Bull protected his own.

That was more than Dorian could ever say. Summer evenings gave and gave and gave until their guests – their patrons, their prisoners – went giddy and drunk with pleasures and frivolities. With dalliances in the dark. There was nothing but cold abandonment come morning; leave them hungry so they come back for more.

He loved it, honestly. Who would he be to turn them away, deny them their pleasure? He had spent too long crafting the fragile fragrances of the night to be enticing enough to challenge fear of the dark.

Fragile fragrances—

Perhaps orchids?

Silky pallid blooms that glowed in the night. Very nearly white, but just off. Pale. But no; orchids were elegant and delicate, and demanded perfection in order to thrive. Winter only demanded the will to press on. For all The Iron Bull appreciated beauty – and _how_ the sun shimmered off his ice in the mornings, how his tiny snowflakes glistened – he was not a fragile thing.

But for all they were fragile, at least Dorian could touch orchids. Could caress them if he wanted to.

If Dorian touched Bull like he wanted to touch him, the Winter King would burn. Ice armor falling away as he became unsure of his form, desperate to escape the heat. His skin no longer scintillating in the light; it would lose its crystalline quality and become damp. Clammy. He would melt. He would take all of Dorian’s heat, his desire, his love, and Bull would love him all the more for it, but it would destroy him, in the end.

And if Dorian let Bull touch him the way Dorian wanted to be touched. His warmth would bleed out – oak to aspen, rich to ashen – and his halo of fireflies would blink dim in the cold. His skin would become rough like bark as it tried to protect him from the chill, and his flowers would wither away, dropping off petal by petal like great moth scales. Winter would demand and Summer would love it, and he would fall.

This, too, Dorian knew. How do you love someone a season apart? When you are their demise, made for each other as you are death to each other. You don’t, really. You meet each other in the in-betweens, the twilights and dawns of the rolling months. You pretend it’s enough and you ache.

He felt Bull’s eyes on him, yearning from a distance, and could only think of the scarred and battered moon casting a pale and loving light over the nights of his reign. Dorian laughed bitterly as he entered their meeting place.

Heavy footfalls alerted him to the presence of another being that was, all things considered, more or less a man. Summer’s breath hitched as he watched Winter draw near him; tired, trudging steps, heavy due to the early spring losing its edge. White and grey contrasting harshly against timid browns and greens.

Bull stepped gingerly out of the trees and into the glade. His smile small and sad. Tired. Unsure. His hands were tight fists at his sides, remembering withering greenery and frostbite blossoming in the wake of every touch. He was picking his man undone. He wanted the embrace but foretold the wound.

He created a silence. So Dorian filled it.

_“I want you to drown in me,”_ he wanted to say.

“You remind me of moonlight,” he said.

 


End file.
